Teaching Portfolio of Vandana P. Janeja

1. Teaching Portfolio ofVandana P. Janeja Information Technology Major PhD in Management Rutgers University - Newark

2. Outline • Goals • Past and Current teaching responsibilities • Teaching Philosophy and approach • Instructional Strategies • Teaching methods • Nature of classes taught • Representative course material • Materials Showing the Extent of Student Learning • Activities to Improve Instruction • Evaluations of Teaching • Contributions to Your Institution or Profession • Other Supporting Documents

3. Goals • To successfully create an appreciation of the subject in the students, in every type of subject matter • Manage successfully various class sizes in diverse environments • Successfully integrate learning in theory with application to real life scenarios

4. Past Teaching Responsibilities • Past Teaching Responsibilities - India • Computer Maintenance Corporation Ltd. Authorized training center(CMC ATC, India) • Training Executives(age group-45-65) • Training IT graduates (MBA, MS) for working on offshore projects in U.S software firms • Training student groups, in Software engineering and programming languages • National Institute of Information technology(NIIT, India) • Teaching Programming languages and database concepts • Conducting lab sessions in MS Office suite for the SWIFT program

5. Past Teaching Responsibilities • New Jersey Institute of Technology(NJIT, Newark, NJ) • Role • Teaching Assistant for CIS 365 Spring 2000(Distance Learning-60 students)- mentors Dr.Friedman and Dr.Beiber • Adjunct Faculty for CIS 365 Fall 2001(62 students) • Responsibilities • Instructing students in File structures using COBOL • Development of complex projects using COBOL file based systems

6. Current Teaching Responsibilities • Rutgers University • Role • Instructor for Oracle and Developer classes for-Database Systems : 22:198:603 • Responsibilities • Teaching on 10th, 17th Feb 2004 for Oracle SQL*PLUS, SQL • Teaching Developer/2000 Oracle Forms and Reports on April 7th 2004 • Conducting lab oriented classes with hands on exercises for students

7. Current Teaching Responsibilities • Rutgers University • Role • Guest lecture for Applications of Database Systems • Responsibilities • Lecture on 22nd March 2004 on Data Mining with a special emphasis on Spatial Data Mining

8. Teaching Philosophy and Approach • Teaching is not abstract but concrete, so have concrete steps and techniques • Some Ice breakers are always good • Consider the background of students in designing the syllabus and lectures • Bridging the gap between theory and practice- Infuse real life scenarios in teaching material • Involve students in hands on assignments with some lab sessions • Project oriented approach to bring together everything learnt during the semester • To draw a careful balance in class interaction, to facilitate individual learning as well as group learning

9. Instructional Strategies • First session – Informal introduction and evaluation of student background and past classes or prerequisites taken • Evaluating and re-arranging the course material presentation based on the above • Setting a clear guideline of grading system • Developing individual and group activities • One presentation oriented session where students present in a small group or individually – based on their opinion or literature of current state of the art of the subject being studied • Facilitates free interaction and self learning capabilities • Generates a good environment for interest in the subject and learning together • Introduces students to each other for other project oriented activities • Encourages a healthy competitive environment • Assignments based on hands on Exercises derived from real life applications

10. Teaching Methods • Lecturing • Lab Sessions or hands on exercises • Individual and group assignments • One presentation session • One semester project – for Example making a software application prototype based on lectures and lab assignments on databases, programming languages

11. Nature of classes taught • Varying in Age (16-65) • Varying in background (undergrad, Grad, Software engineers, Corporate executives) • Special needs student

12. Representative course materials • Syllabus • Presentation slides • Hands on Lab Exercises with Fujitsu COBOL • Student project Submissions(Fall 2001 batch) Enclosed with the portfolio

13. Materials Showing the Extent of Student Learning • Student project Submissions(Fall 2001 batch) • Illustrate the appreciation of using COBOL with advanced Relational databases • Presentations made by students describing avenues in COBOL job market • A special note on COBOL

14. Activities to Improve Instruction • Additional Lab exercises • Assisting in Project work for creating complex relevant application softwares using COBOL as front-end and Access as back end relational database management systems • Presentation based assignments to bring out the managerial skills in a purely technical group of students

15. Evaluations of Teaching • Teaching evaluations for CIS 365 • Lessons learnt from teaching very different groups • Feedback from some students • Evaluation by Supervisors • Feedback from a group of corporate executive students

16. Contributions to Your Institution or Profession • Initiative to propose a new course – JAVA STRUTS for extending CIS 602-Java Programming at NJIT • Initiative to extend the CIS 365 course to advanced usage with Relational Database systems

17. Other Supporting Documents • Experience letter from CMC ATC • Experience letter from NIIT • Teaching evaluations • From NJIT (CIS 365) • From Dr.Atluri evaluations for Database systems